


Jaded Visions

by SkirtWithAWeapon



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 76
Genre: Explicit Language, Gen, Headcanon, Nuclear Winter, One Shot, ZAX is a jerk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-16
Updated: 2019-08-16
Packaged: 2020-09-02 07:59:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20272588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SkirtWithAWeapon/pseuds/SkirtWithAWeapon
Summary: Sure, we all know the experiment within Vault 51 is to pit its dwellers against each other in the ultimate fight for supremacy: the seat of Overseer.  But what if some of its candidates really had no idea what was happening?  Or, what if ZAX fine-tuned the battle royale using some of his more unsuspecting dwellers as the lab rats?  This one-shot fanfic is from the perspective of Jade Perkins, who simply finds herself in a familiar place in unfamiliar circumstances, like a gigantic ring of fire...





	Jaded Visions

Jade took a deep breath and instantly regretted it. She coughed, spluttered, and choked, as burning hot, noxious air had filled her lungs at her own command. She wheezed, clutching her stomach, but couldn’t stop coughing. “Shit!” she somehow managed to groan, knowing what was inevitably coming next. Jade threw herself to the ground, clutched two handfuls of surprisingly long but dry grass, and dry heaved. After the third time, she leaned back onto her knees, and forced herself to take steady, deep breaths.

After a few moments, the shaking had quelled, and she was able to take a better look at her surroundings. She blinked more than once, hardly able to believe what it was she was actually seeing. Jade was perched on the other side of a decrepit metal barrier, separating the road winding down off the mountain from the rock’s edge, staring out towards…

“Flatwoods? Is that Flatwoods…?” she muttered in awe. It certainly _ looked _ like her childhood hometown, though she hadn’t visited since she stopped by for Christmas a couple of years ago. Yet sure enough, there was the church, whose back end she’d be unlikely to ever forget, considering the number of cigarettes she’d smoked there with her friends growing up. Nestled past the nearby bridge was the tacky Green County Lodge. Jade had begun to pick her jaw up from the ground when an explosion from behind her caused her to scream and leap to her feet. She whirled around to see a vehicle in the road had spontaneously exploded and caught fire.

_ No, that’s not right. _ Jade glanced up to the far ridge just as a whirr and thud landed behind her, followed by another explosion. The force flung her onto the ground, her head barely grazing the barrier post. _ Someone, or something, is shooting at me! _ Jade wasted no time to think further, pushed herself to her feet, and took off, only to realize she was still on a cliff. Her feet skidded to a stop, but she lost her balance to tumble hard onto her backside, scraping her hands on the harsh vegetation and gravel. She clenched her teeth and ducked in reflex to the sound of another projectile whirring past her head. That one didn’t make contact until it hit the road below, exploding into a small ball of fire as it made contact with the cracked pavement. She needed to get off that ridge, immediately. Jade rolled onto her belly and began picking her way down the side of the ridge, backwards, her body pressed as tightly against the rocks as she could manage. Her breath puffed out in grunts and gasps, her full concentration channeled into making her way down the rocks safely. The firing had stopped, but she was still scared enough not to go looking for the culprit.

Jade enjoyed a moment of relief as her feet touched the road. There was yet another incline beyond the road, but somehow, a grass-covered ditch seemed less violent than pitching herself off some rocks. She dared to let herself look back up towards where she’d come, but all she saw was the smoke rising from the exploded car. She swallowed, her throat stinging and dry. Her hands hurt where the skin had ripped off raw, but she would be glad to deal with that later. She looked back up to the high ridge and again saw no movement, nor sign of live fire.

_ One. Two. Three! _ Jade sprinted out from the rocks, into the open road, vaulted over the barrier and into the grass. She wobbled as she lost her footing on the landing, but adrenaline had kicked in, and she righted herself without a second thought to take off towards the river. A glimpse of metal and canvas caught her eye to the east and she immediately veered off towards the ruined tent. Her feet splashed through the river, spraying water up into her face, burning her eyes. She was closing in quickly on the tent. Ten more paces. Five. Her foot caught some wayward tree root obnoxiously sticking out from the ground, causing her to accidentally dive head-first through the gaping flap and land, sprawling, into the abandoned tent.

Jade slowly pushed herself up on trembling arms, breathing hard, sweat dripping from her temples down the sides of her face and her chin. She crawled around to enter the tent, fumbled with the zipper, then laid down onto the floor. She closed her eyes, willing her heart rate to slow, so that she could think more clearly and figure out what was happening.

What was the last thing she remembered? Walking through Vault 51. Stepping into a weird, oversized tube, her body overcome by a cool sensation, a humming in her ears getting progressively louder…

_ What? No. That’s not right. _ She reached up and rubbed her eyes with her fists. Walking through Vault 51. Stepping into the shower. The water felt cool, all over her body. Why didn’t the hot water ever work?

Jade opened her eyes and stared directly at the ceiling of the tent. It was worn, and the dead spider hanging in the web indicated that it hadn’t had a human occupant for quite some time. A breeze gently pushed the canvas inward. She rolled back onto her hands and knees once more, listened hard to the outside, then decided to poke her head out when it seemed the immediate area was unoccupied. Dusty, hot air brushed her cheeks as she looked around. She couldn’t keep herself from looking back towards the ridges.

“Was that always there?” she muttered aloud. Off in the distance was a tall line of fire, simply burning against the landscape, stretching up at least six feet or more. Jade blinked, and continued to stare, trying to make some sense of it. How could a fire be a perfect line like that? And simply sitting on the terrain?

She rubbed her face and ripped her gaze off the fire in the distance. She finally noticed the entire sky was tinged an orange-red colour. That was disturbing. A rock sunk into the pit of her stomach as she wondered how big that fire was?

_ No. That makes no logical sense. This is just one really fucked up dream. What did I eat before bed, last night? Maybe something in that pie was off… _

Jade took another breath, but slow and careful, so as not to trigger another coughing-to-dry-heave fit. There was definitely a stench to the air that she couldn’t dissect. _ This is quite the dream. _ She retreated once more into the perceived safety of the canvas. Jade pinched the zipper pull in her hand and yanked, only to have the entire mechanism fall apart in her hand. She stared at the tiny pieces of metal on her fingers. _ This just worked! Are you kidding me? _ “What is going on, here?!” she exclaimed out loud in her frustration. She tossed the metal bits violently to the ground. Tiny puffs of dust rose from where they landed. She whirled around and flung herself to the floor of the tent once more. _ I’m just having a weird, bad dream. I’m going to close my eyes, then wake up in my bunk. _

“Jade!” cried a voice from the door of the tent.

Jade shrieked, pushed herself to sit upright and scrambled backwards, all in reflex. Her body backed straight into the already flimsy wall of the tent, which trembled and threatened collapse.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa! Easy! It’s just me!”

Jade lowered her arms from in front of her face. “Jesus Christ! Gloria?”

Gloria looked left and right, then ducked into the tent. “I didn’t mean to surprise you. I thought you’d have seen me comin’ up on you, out there.”

“No, I...what are you wearing? And what are you doing with that?” Jade pointed at the rifle that was tucked under Gloria’s arm.

“It’s body armour,” Gloria replied casually. “Why _ aren’t _ you wearing any?”

“Why would I be wearing any? Where did you even find that?”

Gloria blinked. “Are you joking?”

“...no.”

“It’s a fight to the death out there! Every candidate for themselves! Last person standing!” Gloria cut herself off before her voice escalated much louder. “Seriously, hun, you can’t be wandering around in the bright blue suit without some kind of weapon.” She pat around her belt, before pulling out a switchblade and offering it to Jade. “Here, take this, and lay low and quiet. If someone tries to come in here, you stab ‘em.”

“Like you did?” Jade asked sardonically.

“Right. But don’t stab me. We’re gonna team up and survive this fucking thing.”

“Did I miss something? What is really going on?”

Gloria ignored the questions, adjusting a couple things on her armour, before nodding at Jade. “I’ll be back with some proper equipment. Don’t move.”

Before Jade could reply in any respect, Gloria had retreated back through the tent flap, and was gone. She looked down at the knife in her hand, feeling underwhelmed by it. Maybe Gloria was right. The whole situation felt much too real to just be a dream. The air smelled bad. Her skin was clammy. Jade reached down and scraped a nail against the canvas tent floor. The scratch and texture felt rough. She pinched the fabric between her fingers, then released, noticing the slight crease that it caused.

She wondered once more if there was something funky in that pie, but there was a nagging feeling that this really wasn’t a dream.

Fear and panic began to creep up from the pit of her stomach. She felt like she may start dry heaving, again. Jade swallowed on a dry throat and sprawled out on her belly, switchblade in hand, and kept her eyes moving along the landscape immediately out front of the tent. She strained her ears to listen for any sound of movement, but all she thought she could hear was the rustling of grass and brush. She realized she was holding her breath, and let it out slowly. Tentatively, she pulled herself a little bit closer to the opening of the tent, extending her head out just enough that she could turn and get a proper 180 degree view.

Nothing to the left, other than a grassy incline she couldn’t see over from her position on the ground. She slowly turned her head to scan across the front, to the right, and the rocky ridges. No movement from that direction, either. ...wait, no.

“Holy shit,” Jade muttered. She blinked, shook her head vigorously, then looked again.

The fire line was _ moving _. 

She stared.

It wasn’t just moving. It was moving _ towards her. _

“How the hell…?” She watched with pure fascination as the fire merely descended down the rocks, burning up the trees and vegetation as it went, yet somehow managing not to cause anything in front of it to start burning until it passed. The fire slid down the ridge and began to advance into the road, towards an abandoned pickup truck. She couldn’t make herself look away. The fire began to advance over the truck. Before it had even reached a third of the way across, the truck exploded. Jade startled so bad, she flicked the switchblade out of her hand. It skidded across the dirt and hit the side of the long-abandoned fire pit, clinking against its rock wall. 

_ Dammit. _ She crawled out of the tent, looking anxiously back and forth. Seeing no further sign of life, she scrambled onto her feet to run to the knife and snap it back up into her hand. Without another thought, she turned on her heel to go back into the tent, when she stopped in her tracks.

The fire wasn’t a line. It was a circle that looped down off the ridge to swoop off about a couple hundred feet behind the tent, and it was advancing. Jade was suddenly aware that what she had thought was just the breeze in the brush was actually the hissing, roaring sound of the fire burning it up, instead.

“Gloria?!” Jade screamed, looking around for any sign of her friend. “Gloria, where are you? Gloria!” She made to step backward and away from the tent, but her boot knocked against the rocks of the fire pit. She caught her balance, sidestepped, then turned, calling all the while. “Gloria! You didn’t tell me the fire moved! Did you know the fire moves?! GLORIA!”

No response. Jade looked over her shoulder once more. The fire had already gained more than half the ground to the tent than when she noticed it was there.

She ran.

Her footing wasn’t the best over the field, with its hidden rocks and seemingly random roots that nearly caused her to tumble ass over tea kettle a few times. She veered left, making for the road. “Gloria!!” she cried again, dashing towards the old Green County Lodge as fast as her legs could carry her. She was out of breath and cramping, but refused to slow down. Her body had a different plan, though. Her lungs were starting to burn and ache terribly, and her guts and legs were knotted up. Jade wheezed and groaned through the doorway of the old reception area and collapsed onto the floor, just barely missing the corner of the desk with her forehead.

_ I’m going to die. I’m going to fucking die. Why is this not a dream? _ Gasping, she pushed herself up on shaking arms, and looked out the broken window. The fire’s endless, grey smoke was shooting up to the sky, beyond the parking lot and the private house on the other side. Clutching her stomach, which was still cramping painfully, Jade hauled herself back to the door for a better view. Sure enough, the fire line -- no, the fire _ circle _ cut across road and field alike, some small distance past the far house, but it had stopped advancing. Once again, it merely sat there, burning on the spot, but not spreading.

She heard footsteps from her left. “Gloria!” she cried on instinct, turning her head to look.

“Nope,” smiled Silvester. His face was covered in a mix of dirt, soot, and blood; the contrast to his bright white teeth made for a sinister appearance.

Jade’s heart rate kicked up, again. “Have you seen her?”

“Nope,” Silvester repeated. He drummed his fingers against the pistol in his belt. Suddenly it became the only sound Jade could hear. She raised her hands, slowly.

“I don’t know what’s going on, okay? One second I’m having a shower next to my room like usual, next thing I know, I’m sitting up on the ridge back there,” she pointed over Silvester’s shoulder towards the mountain, “and someone’s tossing explosives at me. So, if you wouldn’t mind…” Jade nodded at the pistol.

Silvester stopped drumming his fingers against the gun, but did not move his hand. “What are we going to do with you?”

“...excuse me?”

“It’s almost a gift, really, you standing there completely unarmed. If you’re not going to care about becoming Overseer, then I should really just eliminate you and put you out of your misery, and myself that much closer.”

“I really don’t know--”

“The trials! Have you paid no attention to anything in the last week, or so? ZAX posted it in all of the terminals. But you know what? If you’re not going to put in the work to be prepared, you absolutely should not be in the running.”

_ Trials? What trials? Is he talking about the talent show? _ Before she could say another word, Silvester was advancing on her, an evil glimmer in his eyes.

“Now, I’d rather not waste the ammo on such an easy target, so I’m just going to break your neck, all nice and quick and quiet-like.”

“Don’t you fucking dare!” Jade’s voice was shrill. She threw her hands back up and stepped away, backing herself through the door and towards the parking lot. “I’m no threat to you! Just leave me alone!”

“I said I’d _ rather _ not use ammo, but you’re going to die, chicken, one way or another.” Silvester stepped into the sunlight and drew his pistol. Jade opened her mouth to scream when a gunshot popped off from the corner of the building. Silvester cried out and jerked back, blood flying up from the front of his right shoulder. Two more gunshots went off, but grazed harmlessly off of Silvester’s body armour.

Jade finally got her wits together just enough to turn towards the source of the shooting. There was Grace, squatting in the road, reloading her rifle. Jade felt elated at the sight of her friend, but it wouldn’t last long. Silently and without warning, a sniper’s bullet tore through Grace’s skull, destroying her life in little more than a small gush of blood. Her friend keeled forward onto the pavement, lifeless.

There was a roaring in her ears that began to get louder. Silvester, wounded but alive, pointed his pistol off to the east in the direction the sniper fire had originated, barking expletives and taunts. Jade dove behind one of the abandoned cars, only to turn her head and see the fire circle had started moving, again. Not as quickly as it had the last time, but it was definitely advancing.

Her heart was pounding in her chest, adding to the roar in her ears and temples. Jade pressed herself against the car, trying to keep as low a profile as she could. Silvester had stopped yelling. Jade couldn’t help but slowly make herself look over to where he had been, to see he was gone. Her breath hiccupped out of her chest. She looked back at the fire circle. It had just reached the edge of the far house and continued to move.

If she didn’t move, she was sure to be burned to a crisp in that mysterious, but deadly, fire. Moving also gave up her position to the sniper, and would put her closer to Silvester, who had already snuck up on her once. _ Rock, hard place, both mean certain doom. _ Her gut clenched as her eyes swept over Grace’s fresh corpse in the road. Movement from the building caught her eye; it was Silvester, creeping out from the wall towards Grace. Jade watched in horror as he tip-toed towards the body, shoved her in the shoulder to make it roll over, and immediately began to pull the items out of her pocket.

“Hey!” she yelled, before clamping her hands over her mouth. Silvester jerked and swung his pistol out towards her voice. Jade ducked behind the car once more, tears streaming down her face. She bit hard onto her hand to keep from screaming again. A metallic “thud” sounded from the car across from her. Her eyes widened at the sight of a new bullet hole, then even further as a second one joined it. _ The sniper! _

Jade’s eyes darted between the car in front of her, and the door to the Lodge. The fire had reached the edge of the parking lot. Silvester’s pistol was firing, but Jade didn’t know what he was shooting at. Two more sniper rounds embedded themselves into the car in front of her; the last one caused something inside the abandoned engine to leak a dark fluid out onto the pavement. Too late, Jade was reminded of the truck on the hillside, and how it exploded soon after the fire touched it.

The fire was halfway into the parking lot. Hot air made her skin feel like it was burning. She looked over her left shoulder, but Silvester was gone. She’d have to risk moving.

Jade straightened to her feet, but she’d hesitated for too long. The car that sat merely two stalls to her right had been engulfed in the fire and immediately exploded, the force of which flung Jade into the air, for her to make contact against the corner of the building across the back of her neck and breaking it instantly.

A chime sounded. Jade opened her eyes and found herself sitting on a latticed steel bench in what appeared to be a train station. She took a deep breath and instantly regretted it. There was a nasty, metallic tang to the air, that burned her mouth and throat. She began to cough. Jade deliberately pursed her lips and began breathing slower, occasionally spluttering, but managed to calm her cough. She stood up and looked around; she was in a train station waiting room, all right. The sign above the abandoned ticket counter read SUTTON STATION.

There was a sound of popping and rumbling in the distance. Jade’s initial thought was that it was thunder. She turned to look out the door to see the sky, while darkened, was an unnatural shade of orange behind a thick haze of grey smoke. Something jolted in Jade’s memory causing her to dash out of the station and onto the platform. Off to the west rose a grassy mountain, blocking any vision of what could be in the far distance. 

“Where is it, where is it, where is it,” Jade muttered to herself in her rising panic. To the north lay the rest of the town, appearing to be in ruins, but no sign of the mysterious fire circle seemed to be nearby. She looked south. Sure enough, about a mile away, was the fire circle. Relief was quickly replaced by a new wave of panic. She looked back towards the town, weighing her options. She had a funny feeling that running straight into the town was a terrible idea. She furrowed her brow in concentration. Jade had an overwhelming desire to simply find some shelter, lock herself in, and stay quiet until the whole thing was over, but the path to the town was wide open and very exposed. Someone could easily shoot her down in the street, or worse, simply watch where she went, only to follow and murder her behind closed doors.

All she knew was she had to stay away from the fire, and away from other people. She looked to the south once more. Further down the track, some train cars were jammed up and simply sitting there. She knew the cars exploded from the fire, but surely a train car with no engine would shelter her!

Jade made up her mind instantly, hopped down from the platform onto the tracks, and began to run towards the train cars. As she drew closer, she saw that their doors were wide open. _ Good, no need to struggle to get inside, then. _ The fire was approximately a quarter of a mile away, maybe more. Satisfied, Jade hoisted herself up onto the car floor. Sweating and panting, she looked around. In the south end of the car sat a square blue box, accented in golden stripes, which glinted in the light coming in from the open door. That was odd. She tentatively approached the box and was even more surprised to see VAULT-TEC engraved in the gold along the top, and around the circular button that appeared to be the mechanism for opening it.

_ What’s a Vault-Tec crate doing in the middle of this train car? _ Overcome by curiosity, Jade pressed the button. The box emitted a satisfying seal-breaking “pop” before the lid cracked open. She lifted the lid up and looked inside. The box contained a crossbow, a handful of bolts, and a jar of pills. “Rad-X? Never heard of it.” She dropped the pills back into the box, then removed the weapon. After turning it over in her hands a few times, she decided to replace it, too, back into the box.

“Good a place as any,” she sighed. Jade spent the next minute or so attempting to close the car’s doors, but they seemed completely rusted on their hinges, or simply broken. Defeated, she decided the north side of the car was the darkest, and therefore, best place to hide, and settled herself down.

The time that passed felt like years. She could hear the roar of the fire circle, the occasional snap of gunfire in the distance, and the creaking of the metal car frame around her, but nothing else. Jade began to wonder that her mad dash to the train car was merely based on unfounded paranoia, but shook it off. She didn’t know how she knew there were people trying to kill her, but she wasn’t going to test it.

No. She was going to sit, and stay safe, and just wait until this all blew over. Or until she got hungry. Whichever came first.

A strange buzzing sounded off in the environment. Jade sprung from her spot and lunged for the door, looking wildly around for any change in the surroundings. She found it: the fire circle was moving. Jade leaned as far out as she could balance and looked past the rail car. Sure enough, the fire was making its way towards her, consuming everything as it moved in a northwestern direction.

She panicked. The impulse to flee the flames was high, but she forced herself to stay. The fire wouldn’t simply penetrate the train car, that would be impossible. She’d be safe to wait for the fire to pass. 

Jade nestled herself into the back of the train car once more, listening as the roar and hiss of the approaching fire became louder as it got closer. A hot breeze picked up, burning the inside of her nose and throat. She clenched her jaw tight and held fast.

The far side of the train car began to glow red-hot. Jade immediately flinched and pulled her elbows to her side, ensuring she wasn’t touching any of the car’s walls. She figured the fire had to be nearly on top of the train car.

Red-hot turned to orange, then yellow. Then, the emptiness of the south end of the car was replaced with the advancing fire line of the circle. It was simply cutting through the train car as though it was made out of air...and getting closer.

Jade shrieked. “SHIT!” She clawed herself to her feet and flung herself out of the train car. Jade landed awkwardly, tripped, and rolled along the rocky ground, scraping her face and hands. She barely made it back to her feet as the fire began to nip at her heels. The exertion and the heat had caused her entire body to sweat, feeling moist and uncomfortable under her vault suit. She viciously swabbed sweat off her brow and out of her eyes, running as fast as she could, but all too soon she had to slow her pace. She had cramps in both of her sides and her calves, and it was major effort to keep running. She looked over her shoulder to see how much ground she’d gained on the fire.

She’d gained a mere ten feet, which was closing fast, since she’d stopped running. “Oh, God,” she groaned. Jade turned her head forward and tried to go back to a jogging pace. Her body refused to comply. There was an odd galloping sound from her left. She turned just in time to see an emaciated dog lunge at her from the edge of the ditch, from which it had emerged. She screamed and stepped back out of reflex. The mongrel was not deterred. It simply leaned back, snarling, and sprung at her, again. Jade yelped and side-stepped again, wishing she’d taken that crossbow after all.

A sudden WHOOSH engulfed her entire body. She opened her mouth to scream, but the breath merely burned right out of her lungs. Her vault suit disintegrated and she simultaneously felt as though her blood was boiling and her skin was crisping up, her hair fried and long gone, her eyeballs about to burst.

Jade gasped, flinging herself to sit upright and immediately bash her head against the bottom of the top bunk above her. She shrieked in pain and surprise, tossing herself back down onto her pillow. “Owww,” she groaned, tears welling in her eyes. She rubbed the sore spot on her forehead, whimpering.

“Good morning, candidate Jade Perkins!” purred the electronic voice of ZAX. “Another bad dream?”

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, I absolutely believe Vault 51 is set up something like The Matrix. Fight me B-)
> 
> ...yes, during pre-beta, one time (and it only takes once) I thought I could hide from the fire storm in a train car. Pro tip: you cannot.
> 
> Dedicated to my NW fireteam pals! You guys make my day on the regular.


End file.
